Laparoscopic surgery not requiring an incision during surgery of organs, for example, has the advantages to the patient that burden on the patient is lightened and recovery times are shorter, and so is expected to be commonly performed because of its effectiveness especially for elderly or children who are insufficient in strength. The laparoscopic surgery, however, requires a high level of skill, and the number of specialists is not enough, and so training an expert is an important issue. Conventionally as a training method for that, a training method using a dry box has been proposed. This training method, however, is just simulation of operations, and when an expert tells a non-expert about the skill, they show the skill while pointing a monitor screen with their fingers or verbally tell the skill in most cases, and a non-expert often performs dry-box training through trial and error while not fully understanding of the “knack” of the expert's skill.
Patent Literature 1 describes a technique of displaying a target image 11, which is taken with a TV camera beforehand and is stored in a digital memory, in the foreground (front side) of a TV monitor, while displaying an image 12 of a trainee in the background (back side) on the same monitor, whereby both of the motions are compared visually.
Patent Literature 2 describes a motion learning device configured to generate an image of a teacher's motion in the same frame of reference as that of a student, thus providing a more effective method of learning. Specifically the device includes a host computer 12, a monitor 10, a motion sensing device 15 and a sensor 20, and at a first step for training, a motion sequence is acquired from a teacher, and a virtual image of the trajectory of the student's imitating motion is displayed on the monitor 10 alongside the trajectory of the teacher's motion. The literature also mentions that, as the student's ability to imitate the teacher improves, the computer 12 automatically increases the speed of the teacher's motion to increase the difficulty.
Non-Patent Literature 1 describes a laparoscopic-surgery training device configured to divide teaching-aid video into segments of motion in about ten seconds, enabling a learner to perform partial learning. This device is to reproduce one segment of the image on a monitor firstly, and every time the segment ends, the video is switched into the one of the forceps held by the learner to urge the learner to replicate the motion in the range shown to the learner this time. During this, the final frame of the model video is displayed in a semitransparent and overlapped manner for 0.5 sec and every 1.2 seconds. Then, when the learner thinks that their forceps assume the target posture, the learner manipulates a foot pedal to progress the video to the next motion segment, and then the following model video starts to be reproduced from the same posture. A subjective report can be obtained therefrom such that, when the image is switched between self and other images, the learner feels as if the forceps moved spontaneously to proceed to the following procedure.
Non-Patent Literature 2 describes a technique of additionally including a system to record and reproduce insertion skill of an expert physician on a time-series basis, so as to allow a learner to experience and learn such insertion skill of the expert physician. The literature further mentions that they developed a method for evaluating the insertion skill quantitatively and enabled more effective training by evaluating the skill of a trainee, and as a method therefor, (1) teaching (teaching a model insertion skill using the recording/reproducing system), (2) trial (insertion of an endoscope), and (3) evaluation (providing evaluation values obtained through the insertion) are proposed.